Having been travelling for nine hours I needed a coffee. Reception couldn’t help, he hadn’t got facilities and didn’t know if the restaurant would have. No tea/coffee facilities in the room. We got some strange description of charging which seems to be a $39 amenity charge per day, and a $40 room charge credit. Will have to see If I understand that by the time we leave. Good room, plenty of space for clothes and cases. The shower is over bath and needs a refurb. Three settings, none of them very good, middle setting just about adequate. Three bath towels, and bathrobes. which is good. The AC works well and is quite. The bed is a bit firm. One of the two elevators was out of action for our visit.
For dinner we went to the in house Tulio Italian restaurant. Having just got in from Chicago I needed a coffee. They were very slow bringing coffee, the bar man wouldn’t do anything without it coming through server. We had to change tables soon after sitting down as there was a strong draft from the AC hitting us. The Food order taken and a Rusty nail ordered. The Rusty nail, order didn’t come until after starters and it had a huge lump of ice in it, I had asked for no ice. This was remade but even so was shaken with ice. The food was very good, For starters we had the beard service and the Steelhead Carpaccio, both very good. Mains were the Rigatoncini alla Carbonara, not so good, and the Orecchiette, which was excellent. We lost our server early on, some emergency at home to do with his dog! The bar man took over his duties, and did well!. We got a comped glass of wine for the troubles which was nice. Devin, the bar man, turns out to be the star man of the hotel team. The breakfast team should ask him about customer service.
Breakfast Day 1. We had the breakfast buffet. On the buffet table there were potatoes, bacon , sausage and scrambled. I asked the lady there if I could have fried eggs, she said yes, ask your server, who was standing behind me so I asked him and the lady said you should go to your table “I am very possessive of my space and you are in it”. The eggs arrived around 15 minutes later and I got bacon and sausage from the buffet table. The bacon and sausage were basically cold. The waiter said they had had a problem with “the start-up routine” and the bacon and sausage should be warm in 10 minutes! Bit late to tell me and I doubt they would be warm in 10 minutes. The coffee was warm at best and on the weak side. The toaster was a bit old and the toast took a very long time to be ready and there was no marmalade only some runny nondescriptive red jam in a huge bowl. Croissant and pastries were good.
Breakfast Day 2. No improvement. If anything it was worse, the service was even slower for ordering the eggs, the bacon and sausage were still cold. I didn’t bother with the potatoes, I can’t eat those cold. I am sure they refill the Hienz Ketchup bottle. The labels on a small bottle of ketchup could not get that worn and old looking in the time it would take to empty once. I doubled checked the toaster. It is set on its highest setting and still takes 10 minutes to produce warm bread. I didn’t have long enough to see how long it would take to toast. I talked to reception about the quality of the breakfast. The response was “sorry about that” and that was it! So that was a waste of time.
Breakfast Day 3. If anything it is even worse. We now need to go and get our own coffee. I decided to see how long it takes to get a slice of toast. Doubled checked it was on its highest setting, 18 minutes it took! The colour was good, the downside is that it was too crisp. Bacon and sausage way too cool. Mentioned it to staff and got “may need to buy some new equipment” as a response. Dreadful music playing this morning. On the plus side we need to leave tomorrow before they start to serve breakfast!
Paying for the place is not simple, see comments at the start. From the initial sum they applied ti the credit cards, daily sums were added which was impossible to reconcile with any actual spend. The bill had about 30 lines on it, for a three night stay, service charge, service tax charge, amenity charge, amenity tax charge etc etc. for each day. Terrible document. Who cares. I want possibly 6 lines for a three night stay. One line for each night room, one line for each evenings charges at the bar. How many individual charges are applied to the room I don’t care!
